What if I told you that the resistance of the human body and its ability to adapt to physical demands, such as training, is immeasurable? Our bones, muscles, tendons, heart and lungs will adapt to exposed stress. This means that if you do an exercise that is physically challenging, your body will adapt to that stress to ensure that the same activity that may be hard at first ends up being easier in the future.
This adaptation mechanism is both a blessing and a curse. The adage ‘if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it’ can be applied here.
Understand the effect of training
If we continue with the same exercise regimen, We will keep current earnings in fitness, but additional earnings will decrease and eventually we will hit a plateau. These adaptive responses are called ‘training effect’.
The effect of training can only occur when an adequate stimulus (exercise stress) is applied to the body and sufficient recovery is allowed. The muscle is a great example.
Breaking down barriers to exercise
Too hot, too cold, too busy, too painful: how can you overcome common obstacles to move? Are produced many adaptations, But from a mechanical perspective, small tears are experienced in the muscle when you lift a heavier weight than normal.
Getting enough physical activity can make both body and mind feel better. also can help prevent or delay health problems. Now researchers are looking for ways to discover which exercises can best suit each body.
Different types of exercise they can bring different health benefits. They can be strengthened the bones with weights, increase flexibility with stretching or improve heart health with aerobic activity.
But each body is one. Some people, for example, have more of the type of muscle that provides strength. Others are more of the type that provides resistance, which keeps them moving for a long period of time. This is one reason why people can naturally adapt to different sports.
But this idea does not only apply to athletes. It also affects those who do physical activity to stay fit. “There are a variety of reasons why different people can better adapt to different types of physical training “says Dr. Marks Bamman, an exercise researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “And an important factor that we are beginning to learn more about is our genes,” he stresses.
Researchers are studying how these influence responses from our bodies to physical activity. They are also seeing how exercise affects people’s bodies differently. They are even exploring how it influences their microbes. “The ultimate goal is to be able to provide an exercise ‘recipe’ that is optimal for everyone, so they can get the most benefit,” says Bamman.
Influenced by genes
Scientists know that each exercise It is associated with health effects, explains Dr. William Kraus, who studies prevention of heart disease at Duke University. “The benefits vary according to the type, intensity and amount of exercise,” he notes.
For example, his laboratory You have found that long periods of moderate-intensity exercise, such as brisk walking, can be especially good for lowering blood sugar levels. This can be important for people trying to prevent diabetes.
But if what you want is to reduce the levels of bad cholesterol in the blood to help prevent a heart attack, so Kraus advocates “a lot of high-intensity exercise that can make your heart beat and help avoid a heart attack“.
Your team has observed these effects at different ages, for both men and women. But when you look at the people within those groups, he qualifies, not everyone gets the same benefit from the same training.
“We want to understand how your ‘genetic background’ determines your response to exercise, “he notes. His research team has identified a set of genes that predict who will get the greatest improvements in heart health from aerobic exercise, such as jogging or biking.
Bamman’s team has found a set of genes They can help you know who would gain the most muscle with a strength training program. But, he clarifies, “just because you can’t get the same benefits as another from one type of exercise doesn’t mean you don’t get any.”
“Everyone responds to exercise in a positive way,” says Bamman. “For example, there are people who were unable to gain muscle and others who gained strength in our study. There are those who improved the ability to walk and many other important aspects of health“.
Researchers are looking for other genes that can predict how exercise affects different aspects of health, such as blood sugar control. In one study, Kraus and his team tested a Exercise program to reduce the risk of diabetes in a large group of people.
Choose
“Some got a great improvement by controlling their blood sugar, and others didn’t get any, even though they did all the exercise,” he says. Know who has more likely to benefit from specific exercises it can help healthcare providers better tailor their recommendations to people, he adds.
Learning from athletes
“There really is almost no health intervention as powerful and comprehensive to your benefit as physical activity,” says Dr. Euan Ashley, who studies exercise and the heart in the Stanford University.
Ashley, Bamman and Kraus are involved in a great program funded by the US Institutes of Health (NIH) that analyzes how exercise affects different molecules in the body. They are also exploring how this differs between people. The team is studying both those who previously did not exercise regularly and active athletes.
Ashley notes that studying the skills of elite athletes has the potential to help us understand the upper limits of the human body.
“For an athlete to perform at the highest level, everything has to work perfectly,” he says. This includes muscles, heart, blood cells, and more. Studies of athletes like runners and skiers have found genetic differences they have positive effects on the performance of their bodies. At the moment, the most important thing is that you start exercising.
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